


The Hell I Know

by will_warin



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Feels, Gen, I can't write the whole thing in internal monologues, Memory Loss, Modern Era, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Time Travel, can I, dragon flashbacks, i guess, milion of random passers-by
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-21
Updated: 2015-04-13
Packaged: 2018-02-14 03:39:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 14,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2176641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/will_warin/pseuds/will_warin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frerin, an ordinary (though short) man succesfully recovered after a car accident (who am I kidding, right?), goes on a tour to "All these famous places from the book of myths or something". Hey, they say this Moria place is pretty cool. What could possibly go wrong?</p><p> </p><p>  <i>Which started on a bus to Wellington, moved to being a reflection of my trip through New Zealand, suddenly gained chapters (and plot!) and fueled a discusion about possible properties of mithril lasers. Life's weird.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Mines. Mindmines.

**Author's Note:**

> This is what happens when you spend way too much time on bus going through New Zealand. (And also desperately want Frerin to live. Somehow. Anyhow.)
> 
> Also, somewhere around third paragraph a lamb on the meadow next ot the road decided to try and chase our bus. It looked funny. That was your daily piece of random useless trivia.

Sometimes, he thinks the nightmares are the worst about all this. When he wakes up shaking and screaming the names of friends long dead, when the nights seem to last forever and every shadows hides a monster or a memory and he doesn’t even know which one is which.

Sometimes, the days are even worse.

But this is a holiday and he’s supposed to be sightseeing and the battle never happened and the dreams are only dreams. Nothing more. Nothing real.

He walks through the underground streets, touches centuries old walls and tries to feel the history as the guide recites random bits of information she’d obviously learnt by heart. Frerin smiles with the others when she gets to the part how the oldest city was supposedly built by dwarves and then leaves the group to just walk around aimlessly.

"Everybody knows dwarfs don’t exist mister Sonthrain," the psychologist in his head says, as he walks down staircases and corridors carved of stone, "I understand that your head injury was very severe, but- ". Frerin stops. The air smells familiar. The air smells like … _stone_. He used to know the name of this rock, but … No, he didn’t. That never happened. It was just an accident.

He pulls out a map and takes the shortest route back to the touristy area, glad that the rush of people quiet his thoughts. He joins another tour group, walks with them through places that are long gone, listens to stories that don’t mean anything to him. _Why am I even here?_

They walk into another complex, burial grounds, panels everywhere providing translations of the runes on the tombstones. Frerin skims through them, barely registering the words. All of them long dead. No one matters. Not anymore, anyway-

**”HERE LIES BALIN, SON OF FUNDIN…”**

Frerin gasps.

_The heat of battle, a flash of Balin on Thorin’s side, as always, as surely as Dwalin is on Frerin’s and Fundin on Thrain’s._

_Axe and shield getting heavier by the moment, how long can they hold like this? How long has this been going on?_

_Uncle Fundin teaching him how to hold an axe properly, Fundin, son of Farin, laying dead on the battlefield, chest torn apart. You will defend your king with shield and body, they always said, shield and body._

_Balin paling at the sight, but never missing a beat, never stepping away from Thorin’s side._

_Balin explaining the differences between Angerthas Moria and Angerthas Erebor as if it’s the easiest thing in the world._

_Balin telling them stories about ancient wars and all the monsters that fought in them._

_Balin staring into fire while the fathers argued about strategies._

"We’ve already lost everything we had, what worse could be possibly down there?"

**"…LORD OF MORIA"**

Frerin doesn’t realise he’s on his knees gasping for air until there’s a small hand touching his shoulder.

"Don’t worry master dwarf, Gandalf will come and save them."

"Ex..cuse me?"

"Gandalf, the good wizard, will save Frodo and Sam and all the others from the big monster from under the bridge. But it’s scary! Mum says she won’t read me the part in the evening because I would get wild dreams from that!"

Frerin turns to see a little girl in a green hood, followed by a bunch of other kids and a guide in a gray cape with a staff and a fake beard. The tip of the staff is glowing.

"Come on, little hobbits, who wants to see the bridge where Gandalf defeated the deadly Ballrock from Morgof?"

The girl skips away with her group and Frerin decides he won’t mind being a little hobbit for a while, especially if it means finding out more about Ba-… He stops his mind and follows the children.

#####

It’s a terrible, terrible idea.

Also, he is a dwarf. Of Erebor. He shouldn’t be afraid of depths.

"There’s no such thing as dwarves," a voice at the back of his minds whispers, but Frerin barely even notices it’s there. He backs from the bridge, panting. The guide is describing how the Fellowship ran from the orcs , how they got to the bridge and found the monster underneath it. (’ "Not the beard," said Gimli the dwarf’. The children giggle.)

There was a reason why Khazad-Dum was abandoned, Frerin remembers a story from centuries ago, and Balin of all of them knew that. So why would he….?

Frerin turns around and runs.

He doesn’t stop until he’s outside and doesn’t stop shaking until he’s on a bus halfway back to Lorien.

He cancels the rest of his stay there and books the first bus tomorrow morning to anywhere else, he doesn’t even read the ticket properly.

He spends the rest of the day in a pub.

But even after that, his thoughts keep coming back to the one sentence and his mind is filled with echoes of the roar of fire.

"We’ve already lost everything we had, what worse could be possibly down there?"

_Brother, what have you done?_


	2. Dragons and Doubts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What do you do when you meet a past that doesn't exist?

The nightmares are getting worse.

Frerin feels like every mile he travels to the east brings another memory, another monster, another story from the past that didn't happen.  
Wasn't supposed to have happened.  
Couldn't be real.

He spends an afternoon in a café in one of the small towns along the Anduin river browsing the internet for stories.

Stories about orcs and dragons that no one belives were real, because how could they? How could they just disappear?  
Because everyone knows the were killed after the War of the Ring and no one is searching through the Grey Mountains for bones. Everyone knows they are just stories.

Just like the dragon of the Lonely Mountain, killed with a black arrow by Bard the Bowman, King of the City of Dale, restored and shining at the slopes of the mountain.

The city of Dale burning to ashes in Frerin's nightmares.

The plains to the forest are neverending, fields with grain and fields with cattle, towns with white wooden houses and trees in the gardens, far away from battlefields from the history books.

Frerin thinks about all the wars he's learned about and all the frontlines that move on with them and wonders if there's any piece of land that hasn't been stained with blood in one war on anoter.

There's always blood in his nightmares.  
Sometimes it's his own.  
Other times it's not.  
And from time to time it's hard to tell.

He stops by in a supermarket, helps aligning the boxes, when the staff is not looking. This is my life, he thinks, this is what I'm supposed to do, not chasing a past that didn't really happen.

But then the sun is shining late in the afternoon and the wind brings on the first smells of the autumn, and suddenly, there's a pull at the edge of his mind and a long forgotten feeling of something and the next day he is on a bus again, heading to the north, trying to see the ...  
...story?  
...history?  
...memory? 

He isn't even sure about that anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, obviously, due to the lack of internet at the dorm and my limited capacity for amount of episodes per day, this is becoming something with more chapters than one. There might also be a plot one day again. On the other hand, this is kinda my pet project and a way of coping with everybody around me speaking French all the time so I don't promise anything. I mean, the next chapter is more poetry than anything else. 
> 
> But hey, I'm trying to figure out how modern day Hobbiton and Mirkwood would look like, so there might be actually something happening. (Or with some luck I might get to the Taupo reflection/Laketown chapter.)
> 
> Also also I love you all for the 30! hits and 2! kudos on a story about a minor character having inner monologues :D *hugs everone*


	3. On the Road

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where do you go when you want to start over?

Frerin sits on a bench in front of an expresway restaurant, munching a sandwich instead of joining the rest of the bus inside.

The Misty Mountains are a steady presence on the left as they travel up north and just now, in the evening sunlight everything seems to be simple and calm.

He finishes eating and goes for a walk around a small hill claiming to be a natural reserve with a sufficiently short walking track. 

The path goes up the hill and ends at a rusty lookout tower. It smells of steel and concrete, some of the few smells of this new world Frerin doesn't find completely weird. He stops himself at the tought, then shakes his head and climbs up the tower.

The sun has almost set now and the moutains cast long shadows on the hills below them, mostly covered in grass and sheep. Frerin waits if the sight brings in another monster or nightmare or memory, but this time, nothing happens.

He climbs down with the last rays of light and runs back to the bus just to feel the air fill his chest and his heart quicken.

He gets back in his seat, clicks in the seat belt and takes a nap while everyone else slowly shuffle in.

The bus taking a sharp turn back on the speedway wakes him up and he looks out to see the hill again. A strategic location, a great overview on the valley, his mind starts filling out and then the world freezes.

"Oh Mahal, not again." He bangs his head on the seat in front of him as a can't-be-a-memory paints him another hill, another sunset and a story about running.

#####

"So, where to now? Grey Mountains? Iron Hills?" Uncle Fundin's beard is burned and he looks like he hadn't slept in a week. It might be true.

"The Iron Hills have already done enough for us and Náin still accepts any refugees that are too unfit for a longer journey."  
Adad isn't in his full on future king mode, probably because he thinks no one is around. Frerin stops in his tracks and does his best to look like he's not eavesdropping.

"And all roads to the Grey Mountains go either around elves or the dragon, neither of which has shown us much hospitality."  
"Where do you want to go then?"  
"South. At least the winter will be milder. And then west."  
"Misty Mountains?"  
"Not if I can avoid them. Isengard. Dunland."  
"And if that doesn't work out?"  
"Well, if nothing else works, we can always go to the Blue Mountains. You can't get much more west that that."  
"But that would take..."  
"Well, the dragon didn't look like he was moving out anytime soon. Time is one of the few things we've got plenty of. Now, Frerin, don't just stand there and tell me why you're here."

#####

Well, the Blue Mountains worked pretty well, until someone got this brilliant idea to go on tour around the Middle Earth, Frerin thinks as the night settles in on the land. 

He makes a mental note to check if the others actually got there, once he gets back online. What name would Thrain choose to call the new settlement? he wonders as if it was someone he knew, not just a person from history books. Perhaps something like The Most Majestic Kingdom There Is. 

No, wait, that would have been late Thror's style. Thrain's would be something more practical, like Too Busy To Care To Name It or Another Kingdom Under A Mountain or ... 

Frerin looks at the "No alcohol" sign, then pulls the apple juice bottle with cider from his bag and drowns it in two goes.

...or, as the road sign back in the Blue Mountains helpfully suggested, Thorin's Halls - History Heritage Site. Because of course it would be named after...

He absent-mindedly rubs at the shoulder which ended up impaled on the car doorframe. 

Because of course Thorin would care more about his people having a place to stay than how it was called. Because of course Thorin would be a king eventually. Eventually?

Because...adad?

Frerin takes a deep breath and turns his face to the window so that no one on the bus can see his tears.

Adad?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I am writing an emotional diary of my trip through the North Island of New Zealand. So basically the whole restaurant/hill/dinner break scene ended up being inspired by a real place (even though THAT wasn't originally intended). There might be pohotos if I...ok, [here](https://38.media.tumblr.com/357bba475c050d203f794b95b558166f/tumblr_nc5mjrQXsH1r3inaeo1_1280.jpg) and [here](https://38.media.tumblr.com/048337aa0759235990051a6b4ef74912/tumblr_nc5mjrQXsH1r3inaeo4_1280.jpg) and [here](https://38.media.tumblr.com/ac43fdbec48fd1a35baa8720e45c89a4/tumblr_nc5mjrQXsH1r3inaeo2_1280.jpg) and [here](https://33.media.tumblr.com/4dfb577987895026c5180339925574dd/tumblr_nc5mjrQXsH1r3inaeo3_1280.jpg). 
> 
> Also, I wanted to posted the chapter yesterday, but then [this scene](https://38.media.tumblr.com/18b518023c6a2a9ef9f4453718842edf/tumblr_nc3frvYDuz1qf5tr5o1_500.gif) from the extended edition of DoS happened and I was too emotionally compromised to go anywhere near it. So, today, yay! 
> 
> (also thanks again for all your hits and kudos, they make me smile every day I see them.)


	4. Good Food and Warm Hearth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Of dinners and stories.

Frerin doesn't look up the history of Blue Mountains. He doesn't spend time thinking about his family, back to the safe "they would have been here, if they really cared about me".

He doesn't mind being alone.

Most of the time.

He walks to the hostel kitchen with a two-minutes-in-a-microvawe dinner and a bag of way too many radishes for just one person (hey, you try and go shopping for one person and two nights). He sets a few of them aside and passes the rest around the kitchen with a small talk.

The girls from Gondor are here for the nature, they study biology and always wanted to see the endemic species of the forest. The boy from Rohan is on his year off and works in the tourist centre. The work doesn't pay much, but in this part of year he spends more time  
surfing the net than selling tickets and fluffy spiders. 

"You should see the exhibition though, we have some 'real size'", he makes the quotation marks in the air, "models and they are pretty creepy." 

"Were they even real?" one of the girls (Melian?, Mairen? Frerin realises he's already forgotten their names) asks.

"I mean, from what I've heard they were supposed to be huge. Is that even possible with the amount of oxygen in the air and all that stuff?"

"No idea. The exhibition describes it as some local micro environtal something influence, but then dismisses them as unlikely and mostly a legend..."

"Yeah, like the dragon," the other girl joins in, munching a radish. "It was somewhere here, right?"

"The dragon?" Frerin says before he can even think about it.

"Yeah, the dragon from the Solitary Mountain, bravely slain by Bard the Bowman, the king of Dale."

"The _Lonely_ Mountain," the first girl corrects her, slightly annoyed. "It was in the article I sent you last week. Did you even read it? What kind of people would give the place where they live a name with so many sylables?"

"I don't know, maybe dwarfs?"

"Yeah, but they're about as real as the dragon... Anyways, why are _you_ here, oh our generous giver of radishes?"

Frerin tries to remember how to breathe. And talk. And smile. Smile is good.

"Well, I didn't go on holiday last year. And this year. So basically my boss told me that if I show at work during the next three weeks she'll kick me out the door herself. So I bought the Eagle Tours Highlights pass and just travel around the..." he recites the lines from the  
webpage "...most exciting historical and natural landmarks well known from the Legend of The Ring."

"So what are you doing up here?" the boy asks, sitting down on a couch with pasta-in-a-cup. "I mean, the ruins of Rivendell are quite close, but you're on the wrong side of the mountains and nothing else from the story is this far north."

"Well, I've been to..." _Khazad-Dum_  
"...Moria and I" _think I remembered a past that doesn't exist and panicked_  
"kinda found out I had enough of old buildings for a while, so I" _canceled my accomodation and run away on the first bus next morning_  
"looked at the webpage and there was a section about how the forest is an unmissable place of natural beauty or something like that. So here I am." 

Frerin shrugs and (finally!) puts his dinner in the microwave. 

"Wasn't one of the guys in the Fellowship from here?" This one is Linda, definetely Linda, Frerin decides. And the first one was...

"Legolas Greenleaf, the elf, the prince of the Woodland Realm." Mary? Marion? "Which is funny, because from what I've read Legolas means a green leaf too. So he's basicaly a Moon Moon."

"Moon Moon?" 

"You know, like the dog on the internet that does all the stupid things like triping over its own legs or trying to eat lemons and stuff."

"So the elvish guy has a stupid dog name?" Frerin doesn't even try to hide his grin. 

"Basically, yeah. But otherwise he's pretty awesome and noble and all that stuff."

"Yeah, right." Frerin laughs. And for some reason, he suddenly feels …content. Warm inside in the middle of his chest that has been cold for the past couple of days. As if dragons and monsters were just a story somewhere far, far away. As if he was safe in the middle of the mountain, where... alright, let's not go on with that metaphore. Like sitting somewhere quiet in the afternoon sun with all the worries blown away with the wind.

"So what else is there interesting about this doggy elf guy?" 

"You're on the Legend of the Ring tour and don't know the story?" Linda settles in an armchair with a bowl of soup. 

"Well, I saw the movies ages ago." _In a hospital. When I tried to catch up with the popculture. The creepy eye thing was a nice addition to my nightmares already filled with fire._  
"I didn't pay much attention though, they were too long for my taste." _And with too many monsters._  
"But the tour was the best value for money from what I've looked through."

"So, Legolas 'Moon Moon' Greenleaf, was an awesome elf with supersight and a tendency to state the obvious..."  
"Only in the movies." Mary sits with her bowl in the other armchair  
"...and skate on shields and shoot the bow like a pro..."  
"Because he had like a thousand years of practise."  
"...and then he became friends with Gimli the dwarf and together they helped to defeat the evil and then they sailed into the sunset."  
"The Undying Lands in the west."  
"The sunset." 

"Also his dad was the king Thranduil from the prequel, who imprisoned Bilbo and the Dwarfs on their way to the Mountain," the tourist centre guy adds, finishing his pasta.

"The thing has a prequel?" Frerin asks, checks his dinner and puts it back in the microwave. "Like, wasn't ten hours enough to tell the story?"

"Yeah, there's a book about Bilbo, the guy who found the Ring on a quest with dwarfs. It has like two hundred pages. And three movies."

"I've never heard of them."

"Really? I tought everyone read the book as a child. And the movies had posters pretty much everywhere when they came out." 

"Well, I didn't have much of a normal childhood." _As far as I remember._ Not really a lie.

"And I didn't follow much what was going on in the world until the last year or so." Not really a lie either. 

"You should really see at least the second movie. It has all the cool forest sequences and fights with spiders and stuff."  
"And the dragon." Linda adds between bites.  
"And the dragon."

 _That's not really a good idea._ Frerin thinks.   
No, thanks, I think I'll pass. While the _did-he-even-introduce-himself?_ guy grabs the remote and starts going through the hard disk attached to the TV in the common area.  
 _Are you fucking kidding me? I've been having nightmares about a dragon attack for the last twenty four years!_ While he takes out his dinner and starts looking for a fork.  
 _When did you say it happened? Which families were they from?_ As he sits down and the music starts to play.

Then come the monsters.  
The hobbit.  
The wizard.  
The dwarves.  
His shield brother.  
His brother.

The elves.  
The bowman.

Frerin yawns and excuses himself to bed just after the company gets on the boat and he doesn't even have to fake how tired he feels. He barely keeps his eyes open when he brushes his teeth, flashes of the movie still whirling though his mind.

It's just a story, he thinks as he climbs into bed. Nothing real, just a story. A bedtime story. A silly story. A not real story.

Besides, Adad was the one for the dark jokes, Thorin would have never used imrid amrad ursul after all they had been though. Also, he would be much more inventive in his swear words than that.

Just a story. Nothing real.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay, end of the chapter notes. First of all, thank you for all of the kudos and hits (and the bookmark!). I know they are not that many in the absolute numbers, but considering this is a time travel fic about a character featured in like two sentences somewhere in the appendices, wow. 
> 
> Also (for Mahal's sake, if I start using also in the story as much as I use it everywhere else, please hit me somebody with something.) the hostel in Rotorua just opposite the bus station has a common room with a huge TV, hard drive with movies, couches and armchairs right next to the kitchen. And Rotorua is a pretty awesome place, you should check it out if you ever get a chance.  
> I mean [just ](http://33.media.tumblr.com/8efcca596e1c956fc08535df335f12d0/tumblr_ncgp3bOClD1r3inaeo1_1280.jpg)[look](http://38.media.tumblr.com/0bb28052f5492c016a1b9442757468e9/tumblr_ncgp3bOClD1r3inaeo2_1280.jpg) [at ](http://33.media.tumblr.com/154d950e75ac60dabb816be7ef89ec6a/tumblr_ncgp3bOClD1r3inaeo5_1280.jpg)  
> [that ](http://33.media.tumblr.com/cdff8e14f9a54e5f1bc54dfe416a65d9/tumblr_ncgp3bOClD1r3inaeo10_1280.jpg). 
> 
> The name of the Eagle tours was shamelessly stolen from Mark Atkin's (you know, the guy who played dwarf-sized Thorin in all the scenes our favourite elf-sized Thorin was too tall for) answer to my second-worst-hangover-of-my-entire-life oh-crap-I-just-saw-an-actual-Thorin-fight-how-do-I-english question which you can see with your own eyes (luckily with me asking cut out) [here](http://www.legendariummedia.com/2014/07/01/hobbitcon-mark-atkins-thorin-double-first-convention-panel/). Also Mark is awesome and you should follow him on whatever social network you use.
> 
> (And yes, movies based on around a thousand years old legends are totally a thing. *waves towards Beowulf* *not even talking about Roma and Greece*)
> 
> (In other news, if the next chapter will still be the next chapter, this note is two thirds of its length.)
> 
> PS: I've just foud a [magic writing online thing](http://novlr.org/) and they are running kickstarter to make it even more magic, so go check it out, try the beta, tell your friends and all the jazz.  
> (I'm just sooo excited about it It looks neat. I plan to write scientific articles in it. And I don't have that many writing friends. )


	5. Swinging Lamplight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Oh, what a pity you can't sleep again. Or can you?"

This is what he remembers:

Pain, blood in his eyes and even more pain and blood.  
Someone screeming his name.  
Hand gripping his shoulder.  
"Thorin!"  
_Does his hair always do that when he turns his head like this?_  
Darkness and light.

Darkness and light.  
This is what happened.  
A ceiling in a hospital, white and sterile like in any other one.  
The smell of desinfectant in the air.  
People coming and going and meeting and visiting and hoping and waiting.  
"You seem to suffer from a memory loss."  
"You are lucky to be alive after such an accident."  
"We are looking for any living relatives."  
"Are you certain you don't remember anything?"

Darkness and light.  
This is what he remembers.  
A healers's tent flapping in the wind, raindrops drumming but never strong enough to estinguish the fire.  
The air is burning and smells of ashes.  
People running and screaming and crying and limping and coughing and hoping.  
"Go, go, run, help the children if you can."  
"I'm not a child, Thor."  
"Then go and help them, lead them, go, run. Run! Dís, stay with you brother!"  
"Come on, Dizzie, let's run for a moment and then I'll give you a piggyback ride, alright?"

Darkness and light.  
This is what happened.  
A wall in a classroom or an office or somewhere else where it doesn't matter anyway.  
The air is still and almost feels as plastic as everything else in the room.  
People chatting and gossiping and breathing and laughing and never listening enough.  
"We recommend a series of reintegration courses."  
"Let's start with how to set up a bank account."  
"I lost my job, so I thought I'd take up computer lessons to pick up something useful...or at least to know how to stay in touch with my grandkids. Cookie?"  
"My name is Frerin. I had a car accident. I don't remember anything before that."

Darkness and light.  
This is what he remembers.  
A wall in a classrom, underground level thirty five, judging from the texture of the stone.  
The air smells like graphite, iron and granite, with just a touch of gold and candlelight.  
Dwarves whispering and reading and writing and drawing and smiling.  
"Sit properly, princes don't slouch in their chairs."  
"So that's how my name looks like when written? How do I write Thorin? And Dwalin?"  
"If a certain dwarfling won't stop nibbling away the dough, he will have a stomach ache in the evening...and there will be no cookies for later."  
"I am Frerin, a prince of Erebor, the third heir to the King Under the Mountain."

Darkness and light.  
You don't need memory to sort out colourful boxes.  
You don't need to understand technology to know how to turn the box in the red light until it beeps.  
You nod and smile and recite phrases and try to ignore the emptiness inside.  
There's no such thing as dragons. There's no such thing as orcs.  
There are banks and computers and buses and trains and cars.  
He had an accident. He lost his memory.  
This is what happened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay, this is the chapter that is more poetry than anything else.
> 
> Once again, thanks for the hits and kudos and *hugs Luckwearer for the comment and bookmark*. 
> 
> Also, my apologies for the details and typos in the first three chapters before I started crossreading what I was writing. I'll fix them eventually. 
> 
> Next time: A morning, a not-elf, a revelation about past and a few important questions.


	6. Leaves and Leaves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "If I get up I have to _**see people**_ and **_do things_** !"

Frerin doesn't get up at nine, when his alarm clock rings, at ten, when his roommate comes and leaves again, not even at eleven, when the sun shines through a gap in the curtains in his face.

He does consider doing something productive, or useful, or you know, touristy, but then he covers his face with the blanket and decides to focus on _doing nothing_ and _waiting until the world stops feeling so heavy_ instead.

He finally finds his way to the kitchen at half past one, with his eyes still half closed and brews some luckily-free-for-all coffee. He enjoys the smell much more than the taste, even with four teaspoons of sugar in it, but at least it's something to anchor him in reality. He sits down on a couch with his mug and just breathes in the warm air, trying to relax.

It takes a while, but finally he feels calm enough to try and figure out his plans. Ten minutes and two half formed possibilites later, he realises that he hasn't eaten for the last fifteen hours, so he decides to start with that.

Around two, after coffee, lunch, a small talk with two strangers passing by, and some thinking, the world is (relatively) simple, calm and normal.

The battle plan:  
Today: the short forest path (if it's not too creepy). Snack at the tourist centre. The museum (if it's not too creepy). An evening walk around the town (if he's not too tired). Figuring out what to do tomorrow, especially where to go tomorrow. Book the bus. Book the accomodation. Sleep happily with no nightmares.

Tomorrow: Another forest path (if there's time). Checkout. Bus. Adventure. Fun. What could go wrong?

#####

The reality is, of course, totally different from the plans. _Of course._

Frerin feels like the forest is cursed, shadows crawling with monsters and the-scientists-say-the-spiders-aren't-real-so-they-can't-be-here. The fact that the northern part of the reservation is probably the most protected area in the world doesn't really help much with that. 

There was a line in one of the hospital books how people from the plains feel trapped and vulnerable in the mountains and how the people from the mountains feel exposed and vulnerable on the plains. Frerin supposes something like that works for city people in the wilderness too. He's been to woods before, of course, and Lorien with its thousand parks counts as a half forest too, but he's never felt so ... _unwelcome_ like here.

He walks through the path as quicky as possible and then spends a subjective ethernity sitting in the sun. The sun is good. The sun means open plains and warm days, sitting at the campfire as Amad cooked dinner and told stories... no, wait, never happened. Sitting at the campfire as...

"Oh, look, a dwarf. It's been a while since your kind was here. Wanna a barrel ride?"

Frerin opens his eyes to see a ... boy? Girl? _Elf ..._ standing at the tourist centre terrace with a broom.

"I'm short, not a dwarf, FYI. And, no thanks, the spiders were enough."

"There's been no spider in the last eight hunderd years, you know."

"Yeah, and your ears are pointy."

"Not anymore. It freaked people out."

"Seriously." Frerin stands up and walks to them. They look in their late teens, maybe early twenties, but he's never been good at guessing the age of men. Or elfs. He was never good at guessing the age. Of anyone. His head starts to hurt. 

The not-elf nods.

"You're telling me you got your ears fixed not to freak out the tourists. How much does _that_ cost? Two songs and seven apples?" Frerin doesn't expect an honest reply. Well, he doesn't expect anything anymore.

The not-elf(?) shrugs.  
"Not that much. About a half the price of a breast job. One boob, two ears, a fair offer. And you get to go anywhere without people staring. A great plus."

Frerin's mind freezes. Again. He doesn't like this new trend. 

"You're not an elf," he growls, while the cold spreads through the rest of his body.

"Maybe, maybe not," the not-elf(!) looks at him closely. "But you're not human. Your waist is too broad and your hair is too thick and a couple of other things that are obvious if you know what to look for. Though I tought you all died out when the plague hit Moria a couple of centuries ago." 

"The what, the where, the when?" Frerin doesn't even care his words don't make sense and his heart is beating at the speed of a full sprint. 

The elf(?) studies him for a moment and then scans their surroundings, suddenly looking ageless and old at the same time. Only two tables on the terrace are occupied, one by a family with small children throwing fries at one another, the other by three women in their fifties chatting loudly.

"The plague," the elf says slowly and a fraction more quietly than before, leaning towards Frerin, "that hit the kingdom of Moria, below the Misty Mountains, a couple of centuries ago, during the reign of Durin VII, son of Thorin III Stonehelm, son of Dain Ironfoot, the King under the Mountain. Do you know what I'm talking about?" 

Dain, right, the name rings a bell. Frerin nods. 

"What are you doing here, in the forest? Are you going to the Lonely Mountain? Are you trying to get home?" The elf's voice sounds concerned, and maybe, just maybe a bit sad.

"My home is in the Blue Mountains," Frerin says around the raising panic in his throat. His hands are shaking.

"Of ... course it is," the elf replies tonelessly, then does something with their face and the way they hold their body and then they look like a late teenager again. 

"Well, then, don't forget to stop by at the visitors centre, we set up a new interactive exhibit last month and I think it's pretty awesome. You can even download an app to help you learn about the plants and animals as you walk around the forest. Modern age rocks, " they say with a wink and walk away sweeping a pile of leaves out of the pathway.

Frerin looks after them, still dizzy from all the things he's just heard. Then he decides it's time for another coffee. And like seven sugars in it. 

The smell and warmth chase away the majority of the turmoil in his head, except for the most important questions, circling back every time he tries to chase them away.

What in Mahal's name has just happened?  
Who the fuck is Dain?

_(Am I really going back to the Mountain?  
Is everyone else really dead?)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay, high-tech elves. Well, at least one of them. The price of the ear job is based on a real story, by the way.
> 
> Once again, omygosh almost a hundred hits on a story about a charcter who's got about two sentences in the Appendices. *hugs everyone*
> 
> Also, you might have noticed I edited the summary a little, because I'm friends with physicists and yeah, lasers. Did you know there are at least two scientifically looking articles on Middle Earth geology? 
> 
> I'm trying to talk to people and headcanon/fix any plotholes that arise in the discussions, so yeah, this might be even moving towards a real story, instead of just snapshots of memories. 
> 
> Having said that, the next chapter is mostly about walking around and looking at things. But hey, Frerin gets a brilliant idea at the end of it. Any guesses?


	7. Hide Behind the Oakenshield

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A cup of coffee with seven sugars in it is precisely on the line between _tastes as terrible as I am feeling, so it actually helps a bit_ and _shouldn't this be illegal_. Do not try at home.

Frerin does go to the museum eventually, after some tea (because apparently he's still got some sanity left when it comes to hot beverages with enough suger in them to turn them almost to gels), two apples, a short walk in a park outside of the reservation area, lunch, a chocolate bar and deciding that none of that is real and _this day can't possibly get any weirder, right?_

The new exhibit is really cool indeed, so Frerin spends most of the afternoon learning about different plants and animals and _  
ecosystems_ and generally trying to ignore that the whole conversation with the elf ever happened. 

But then, of course, there are the spiders. Big hairy spiders, the size of a … (warg, not warg, what is a warg anyways?) pony, with too  
many eyes and legs and teeth? _Bity things_ to boot. And behind the spiders, there is a wall painting of dwarves fighting them. And they look real. Very real.

The painting is followed by another one on the next wall (Frerin almost trips over a spider's leg while trying to get there), this one  
showing the dwarves in the Elfking's prison and a next one, just behind the kids corner, the dwarves escaping the dungeon in barrels.

Frerin stares at the pictures, trying to fight the feeling of familiarity creeping upon him. 

They were real.  
I am real.  
This is real.  
Is it?

And then, just an afterthought. Elves can live for centuries. Could they...?

The family from the terrace comes in, the kids running to the toy barrels and plastic swords and bows, so Frerin walks away slowly. He goes back to the hostel, books a bus for the next day, then a hostel for a week and a train from Dale to Osgiliath.

He eats quickly, makes some tea and runs through all the movies on the hard drive in the common room. 

The guy from Gondor winks at him as he passes by: “The folder you're looking for is called Legends. And start from the first movie.”

Frerin smiles back and settles in an armchair.

_My dear Frodo, you asked me once if I had told you everything there was to know about my adventures. And while I can honestly say I have told you the truth, I may not have told you all of it..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter, italics abuse, almost no dialogue, all check.
> 
> But hey, you know what will happen in the next one, right? (by the way, it looks like I'm moooostly writing in the bookverse with the movies in it, exceptions may happen. ) 
> 
> Once again thanks for hits and kudos and all that stuff, you're amazing. *hugs*
> 
> Also, be carefull with the amount of sugar in your drinks.


	8. Mistakes. Or Not Mistakes?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are bad ideas. There are terrible ideas. Then there is life and it is the best terrible idea of them all.

Frerin doesn't know how long it takes him to stop shaking. He hides in the shower, the smell of water covering memories of ruins and ashes.

Why would a story about a hobbit start like that? With a drag -

\- _ground shaking as if the stone itself was falling apart. Screams._ –

\- water, water, water, safe -

\- _fire in the air, the smell of burned hair (like when he got too close to a fireplace and Thorin laughed at him for weeks), the sound of burning stone, the scratch of talons on rock_ -

\- never happened, not real -

\- _holding Dís’s hand, running, neither of them being able to catch breath, more running_ -

-the little girl from Khazad-Dum saying everything will be fine -

\- _trying to think of ways how to distract Dís while walking through snowing ashes and looking for anyone familiar_ -

\- never happened, never happened, just a nightmare -

\- _real_.

Real?

Frerin stops the water and listens to the sudden silence. What if it _is_ real. What if it really happened. What if it wasn't just a story.

How would he know?

A week in Dale.

Not in a lively city with markets and fairs. Not in a burning ruin. In a new, modern Dale with cars and buses and trains.

What could be left from so long ago it's just a story now?

He doesn't dare to think about the mountain. There's too much fire around it.

Frerin gets out of the shower, changes to his most comfortable clothes and goes back to the kitchen to make some tea, trying to avoid paying too much attention to the movie still running in the background.

He can't help but notice the new versions of Dwalin and Thorin and Balin though. They feel both familiar and like strangers even though they shouldn't. Should they? Frerin shakes his head and opens his laptop. Right. First things first. The internet. Google.

Who was Dain Ironfoot and when was he the King under the Mountain?

_Wait, what? The little Dain?_

_What...what was the Battle of Five Armies?_

_Oh, Thor, how? How did you...?_

_Nephews?_

_Dizzie?_

And then it's time for closing the laptop and having another tea with lots and lots of sugar.

_A week in Dale._

_What could be left from so long ago it's just a story now?_

_And what if it isn't just a story?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, thanks for reading and reading and stuff. I'm ~~supposed to be~~ trying to write a scientific article and ~~most of the time feeling like I'm failing miserably~~ so it's nice and motivational to see that people open and read something not-sciency I wrote. 
> 
> *hugs everyone*
> 
> Also, I'm trying to update the tags but if you think I should fix something in them just let me know.
> 
> Next chapter: another milion hours on a bus. I hope.


	9. Clockworks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “A lonely road, crossed another cold state line, miles away from those I love, purpose hard to find...”

The morning is checking out and sitting in a park with hot chocolate and cookies and pretending the world isn’t at all terrifying. The noon is a pasta box somewhere on the road, the afternoon is a never-ending ride on a bus and way too many thoughts and memories.

Memories? 

Whatever.

Frerin considers trying to sleep and never sleeping again, his mind a buzz of an incoming headache. He rubs at the scar at his temple, where the car door… car door? Why does every sentence end in a riddle?

He sighs and sips his coke, trying to … he’s not even sure what he’s trying to do anymore. Maybe not throw up from all the anxiety?

He settles for watching the forest and trying to name all the plants he remembers from the museum. 

_What if the elves are real? What if some of them still remember his brother leading a company to the mountain?_

_What if some of them took part in the battle?  
(And saw him die?)_

_Balin must have been devastated, well, Dwalin too, since he’d probably ended up looking after Thorin after…  
_

Frerin takes a deep breath and leans his forehead on the cool glass.

_after he disappeared in the battle of Azalnubizar. They probably thought him dead anyways. And then Thorin died and Balin set out to drive out orcs out of Khazad-Dum and Dwalin didn’t. That pretty much speaks for itself._

(And it all happened centuries ago and they all have long returned to stone by now), a little voice reminds him and Frerin tries to drown his tears in sugar.

He manages to fall asleep in the late afternoon and wake to the bus taking a sharp turn just before sunset. Well, technically, here in the valley the sun is already over the horizon, but up there… 

Frerin gasps.

… up there the rays of light still paint a side of the mountain in the shades of red and yellow and everything between. And for the first time, orange doesn’t feel like a stupid fruit colour anymore.

He tries to think of a memory to go with the image but finds none. It’s just … way too beautiful to remind him of smoke and ashes and anything from earlier than that felt like a fairy tale even before the battle.  
He closes his eyes, letting the sun set and keeping the one moment when the mountain, his mountain, looked too perfect to be real and too real to be just a story.

_Is this how they saw it? Is that how they felt?_

He gets lost on the way to the hostel, gets to bed so long after ten it’s almost eleven and falls asleep immediately.

He wakes to a thunderstorm in the middle of the night and it feels like the end of the world. 

It doesn’t remind him of a dragon.

Not. At. All.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good news: there is a plan for the rest of the story and the end is already written.  
> Bad news: I still need to write a week of stuff happening.
> 
> Good news: I might have a bunch of ideas for a sequel.  
> Bad news: It would have be a _real_ story and that's scary,
> 
> Good news: I obviously _can_ write stories longer than a thousand words. Wow.  
>  Bad news: Every chapter is in a different tone, depending on what was reading that day. 
> 
> Once again, thanks to everyone for reading, Luckwearer for commenting and holy meow, have you seen the extended edition? Like a half of the new scenes is feels. And the battle. Well, at least we know Frerin saw the cinematic cut, don't we.
> 
> Also the lyrics is from Avenged Sevenfold's Dear God. And orange is a weird colour (funfact: before oranges it was called yellow-red. ") and Middle Earth has got coffee.


	10. Ticking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seven nights in Dale. It’s good to have a plan. Plans are good. You can watch them fall apart and pretend it was supposed to happen.

Frerin gets out of bed and to the breakfast at half past nine. Mainly because one of his roommates snores loud enough to wake a dragon. All the way back to the Mountain.

He stops himself at the thought, shrugs and gets back to his coffee.

He tries to make sense of the local transport lines and timetables to find the easiest way to the mountain, decorating them with crumbs and a smudge of yogurt in the process.

He’s not really sure he wants to go there anymore. 

He’s pretty sure he doesn’t want to go there today.

He looks around at posters advertising different ways of What to Do with Your Time in Dale. Two day trips to the Iron Hills and Grey Mountains are out of the question, hiking/climbing/skiing on the mountain as well, and just walking around feels like a waste of time. He just came from the forest and doesn’t really want to see the botanical garden.

But then … didn’t the Company come to the Laketown, "the best place to run away from the city life" too? 

Frerin finishes his breakfast and packs for a trip to the lake.

####

It terribly feels like running away. But then, you can’t really procrastinate the past, can you? And trying to be more or less stable human being is important too. Frerin thinks his doctors would agree on that.

He wonders what they would think if he managed to find a proof that his memories were real. Then he realises he doesn’t care. It’s his life, they just are there to help with the hard parts. He makes a mental note to make appointments for all the check-ups he’s supposed to go to and then he goes back to being on holiday.

The morning is cold, clouds are handing low and the air still smells of water, but the rain has stopped and the sun is slowly finding its way to shine.

The mountain is a steady presence in the distance, but far enough not to draw too much of his attention.

Frerin walks around the mostly empty streets, trying to think of something to do. He goes to the old town, which used to float on the lake, but some centuries ago the town council decided boats were old fashioned and build some streets instead. That was the biggest building activity since the great fire in -79 F.A., which desolated most of the houses and definitely wasn’t caused by a dragon, as the stories say, but more likely by a fallen candle or something like that. Frerin smiles.

He finds a fast food with wi-fi, uploads his photos and writes emails to his friends from work. He should have done it a week ago, but well, life. Better late than never.

Two coffees and a million emails later, the sun is shining bright and the mountain looks friendly and there are actually some people outside doing things rather than just hiding inside and talking about the rain.

Frerin finds a dry patch of concrete near a playground and surrounds himself with all the maps and brochures of the Greater Dale area he’s managed to find. Right. Let’s make a plan. He spends the next couple of hours reading and arranging and scribbling in his notebook and chasing the papers after a couple of particularly strong gusts of wind.

When he’s done, the sun is almost setting again. He catches a bus and falls asleep immediately.

When he wakes up, there is a song at the edge of his mind, about winds and dragons and gold and mountains. It stays there the whole evening.

The nightmares don’t come that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been the hardes chapter so far, I needed like five version before I realised was it was suppposed to be about. But yay, a local minimum of satisfaction. I mean ... a minimum of a potential energy surface of ... I mean, I'm trying to beat the sore throat with placebos before it turns to a cold and writing a report about finding stable conformations, so please, ignore me. 
> 
> Also, even though you can't really see it, the modern day Laketown is pretty much influenced by Taupo. Photos...maybe. 
> 
> Once again, thanks for reading and stuff. Enjoy the trailer today.


	11. Closer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “We must away ere break of day, to find our long forgotten gold…”

Dale is horrible. Too busy and too crowded, too sunny and too loud. Frerin collapses on a bench with a sigh.

There is only so much time you can spend looking for something that doesn’t exist before you start seeing ghosts.

_It’s not real. It never was._

There’s nothing familiar in the streets, in the sounds, in the smells. It’s hopeless.

_What did you expect, a flashing sign?_

Frerin opens a map and stares at it. The city spreads in all directions, along the river from the lake at one side to the mountain to the other.

He gives up and takes a bus to the heritage site.

Everything feels even worse.

The whole place is just wrong, from the smell of the stone to the rails on the pathways, to stairs and light and …

He barely listens to the guide.

He doesn’t want to hear what she says anyways.

He doesn’t want to know what happened to ~~his brother~~ the king who tried to save the mountain and lost his heart instead.

He doesn’t want to know why the others left.

He doesn’t want to remember.

He doesn’t …

… he doesn’t belong here. The throne room and visitors’ room and merchants’ hall look perfect and empty and still and dead.

He spends the rest of the tour counting his breaths and then runs away from the mountain like it is on fire.

Like the last time.

_It isn’t real._

He walks all the way back to the hostel, showers until the hot water washes away his tears and makes the world bearable, then eats a half of a chocolate bar for dinner and pretends it’s enough.

He lays in his bed and wishes for the rain to come back to give him something to listen to. He doesn’t remember falling asleep.

But when he wakes up, it’s because of something even worse than dreaming about the dragon. It’s because the world is falling apart.

#######

"I'm scared Frer."

Frerin snapped the book shut and turned after the voice. Thorin didn't share his feelings often and even more rarely he admitted anything that could be even remotely considered a weakness. Even Frerin got enough of the A Heir Of Durin Should Act Like This drill, to know what his grandfather and father thought about that.

"Udad is spending longer and longer in the treasury and it sometimes it takes several tries at calling his name before he even notices. We should do something about that."

Thorin looked worried. He always did these days, with his twenty-fifth birthday approaching and his duties and lessons increasing with that. Frerin tried to help, but too often he just didn’t know how. And the truth was, that even on good days Thror could be pretty terrifying.

"But what can we do? It's not like we can tell the king to leave the room and do his job for once."

"Frerin!"

"You know it's true! Adad does most of the king’s work by himself now. You now, apart from being in charge of the guards and dealing with the guilds and everything. He didn't even come to have a dinner with us for at least a month!"

And he _promised _,__ Frerin thought with all the pain and rage of someone who is expected to act like an adult, but is still treated as a child.

"There must be a way."

Besides, he missed his old granddad, the one that would smile and sing and tell stories instead of just glaring and shouting or spending his days in the treasury staring at something only he could see.

"What way? How do you stop a mad king?"

"THE KING IS NOT MAD!"

Frerin turned and ran from the room. Thorin didn’t speak to him for two days. Then Frerin found him sobbing in one of their few hiding places the adults either hadn’t found yet or just decided to ignore, and they cried and hid from the world together. Then they made a plan. Several plans. Two of them actually worked and got Thror out of the treasury to the family dinner. One got them three weeks of washing dishes as a punishment, because Dís slid down from a pile of gold and they didn’t manage to find a way to hide the bruises. Most of them failed.

Then came the dragon.

Then the orcs.

Then Udad’s head.

Then the battle.

Then the car crash.

Then the pain.

Then the nightmares.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right. Thanks for reading. Sorry for feels. Sorry for the wibbly wobbly posting schedule, and possible inconsistencies, but lately it takes way too much energy to pretend I'm a stable human adult at work, so I kinda don't have the energy to pay attention to details.
> 
> I should also reread the whole thing somewhere in the near future. 
> 
> Thanks for reading, commenting *hugs sunbearparade* and all the stuff.
> 
> Also, I usually want to know the scientific(-ish) explanation for everything, but I love the headcoanon that dwarves can smell stone waaay to much. And no one even really knows how human sense of smell works anyways. So, *waves arms* G-proteins.
> 
> (alsoalso, would you be so kind and point out any inconsistencies you notice? that'd be cool of you. I'm working on typos.)


	12. Detours. Shortcuts. Escape Routes.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, when you walk away from a scary thing, you call it tactical withdrawal to feel like you still have some dignity or self-confidence left.  
> Sometimes you just admit you’re running away and that you would be screaming if you possibly could.

Frerin stares at a map of Dale and doesn’t even try to pretend he registers any marks on the paper.

He doesn’t think about his grandfather. 

_Not real. Never happened._

He doesn’t think about his brother.

_Thorin, son of Thrain, son of Thror, King Under the Mountain._

He doesn’t think about having a family.

_Dizzie showing him the first baby tooth that fell out._

_Amad singing them goodnight, at home at first, and on the road later, when they were covered in ashes and dust._

_Adad showing them how to enter the room like a Durin, looking confident and strong._

_Dwalin trying not to look scared during their first battle._

_Udad bending down to them, squeezing their shoulders:  
“You never leave your shield brother in the battle. You are never alone. Do you understand?” _

_Udad standing at Umad’s grave, crying for the first and last time Frerin remembers._

_Umad telling them stories about her childhood in the Grey Mountains, centuries ago._

_Umad and Udad from Amad’s side coming to Erebor for the Durin’s Day celebration, smiling and bringing toys and sweets._

_Balin waiting for them in the library to collect the treats they hated and he loved._

Here lies Balin, son of Fundin, lord of Moria.

Frerin leaves the map lying on the table and runs.

Out of the house, around the park. Slow down to a fast walk.

Walk until you’re able to catch your breath again and tears stop streaming down your cheeks. 

_This isn’t real. It can’t be. It hurts too much._

#####

He spends the rest of day in a zoo, watching creatures he’s never heard of and which he doesn’t really care about, trying to pretend he’s just an ordinary human.

It doesn’t work very well. 

(He learns a lot about monkeys and spends a long time watching wild cats, fascinated by the way they move. Most of the animals feel fake. He avoids the wolves by all cost.)

In the end of the day, the only thing that really stands out to him is how many versions of a brown animal with horns there are.

When he looks into a mirror, Frerin realises he hasn’t shaved since Khazad-Dum. 

Moria.

Whatever.

He shrugs and leaves the bathroom, too tired to care.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short chapter.  
> Not much words. Much feels.
> 
> (totally not repeating phrases.)  
> (Frerin dear, can you stop hurting yourself?)
> 
> Also thanks for the kudos and comments and stuff. *hugs everyone* Sorry for slowing down the posting but the air conditioning at work is killing my eyes and that drains my energy. But hey, a chapter guess.
> 
> Comments? Questions? Talk to me and end up tangled in time paradoxes as it happened to wrmauney after the previous chapter! :D 
> 
> (Also, if yoou say please I can give you the translation of the dwarvish words for family members. Or you've picked them up somewhere along the way. Or just guess.)


	13. Mines. Goldmines?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How can you stop looking for something when you haven’t even really started yet?

Another day, another morning, another half-eaten breakfast, the biggest possible mug of coffee and mindless staring into maps and leaflets and guides.

Frerin sighs and runs a hand through his hair. It’s getting too long. He should have it cut soon or he’ll look like a …

He leaves the sentence carefully unfinished and goes back to figuring what to do.

With today. Where to go. Not with life in general because…

He takes a sip of the coffee and pushes the emotions down. 

Small steps. One problem at a time. 

He sorts the papers to piles _maybe_ , _someday_ , _likely never_ , _why did I even get this_ and tries to pick up something where he can spend at least a couple of hours without being flooded by not-really-memories. Eventually he decides for a museum, because why not, this one is free and sometimes they have cool stuff in there.

(He remembers how strange a hibernating bear’s heartbeat sounded in one the exhibitions back in the forest. A slow deep drumming that echoed through the room calming and mesmerising.)

He actually manages to finish his breakfast this time.

#########

The museum building looks like it’s trying to compensate for something. High ceilings, big windows, lots of empty spaces the curators struggle to fill. Frerin walks through the floors with yet another different species of horned brown animals, more birds than he’d imagine could ever exist, butterflies the size of his head. 

Creatures from nightmares, safely in the Extinct section. 

Skeletons of cave wolfs, height up to 1.6 meters, rumoured to be around even as late as about 0 F.A. 

_Cave wolfs. They didn’t call them cave wolfs. They …_

Frerin fixes his gaze on the floor and walks slowly, but resolutely, in the opposite direction.

He holds his breath until he gets across the corridor, as if the monster could come to life and attack him.

_… they were so big. So strong. So fucking terrifying. Eight years of battles. Eight years of nightmares._

He sits on a bench in the next exhibition area and forces himself to breathe normally.

The air…

…smells like home.

The air smells like the library on the thirty fifth level and the forges and the throne hall and the kitchens where he spent weeks washing dishes because of Dís’s bruises.

The inside of the Mountain.

Home.

Frerin opens his eyes to see he’s accidentally entered the mineralogy section.

The walls are covered in stone, actual stone from the actual mountain, smelling like calm and safety and just a touch of gold and there are glass cases with different gems and minerals and just ... _stones_.

He walks through the room, touching each case, his mind full of words he wasn’t really aware he knew. Old words. Secret words. Their words. _His_ words.

Something so deep and precious even a whole new world couldn’t take from him.

He had an accident.

He died in a battle.

Maybe both.

Maybe neither.

But as Frerin walks through the Local Rocks section he is undeniably, absolutely sure that he had been born in the Mountain, years and years before …

He stops.

… it became a gold mine?

He stares at the panel showing the mountain before and after the industrial mining in “… the largest of several dozen mining shafts in the area and the only one still active in the last twenty years…”

Frerin’s chest freezes.

Industrial mining. 

He remembers all the trucks he’s seen on the road, the smoke rising from factories and endless boxes of halls producing this or that or basically anything,

He was hired to work in one of them, just after he got out of all the hospitals and courses he’d been in, but there were too many people, too much noise, too much light, too much plastic that even the smell of metal didn’t help to calm him down.

He quit after two days, claiming the noises made his freshly healed head hurt.

He nearly fainted during a walkthrough in the second box hall job interview.

After that, he wasn’t offered another factory job and ended up in a supermarket.

It took him a week before he realised he’s basically invisible unless a customer needs something. He’s been doing fine since that.

Before going on this cursed trip.

Before coming home.

Before finding out most of the mountain was turned to piles of dust in search of gold.

_Humans._

He thinks with all the anger and disgust and despair and grief.

Humans.

But if this is a world of Men, what happened to the dwarrows of the Mountain? 

Frerin takes another look at the room and leaves the museum to look up what the legends say about what happened after the battle ~~when he lost his~~ …

… the Battle of Five Armies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is it just me, or are the chapters getting shorter? 
> 
> Whatever. 
> 
> See, I'm not gonna work today anymore anyways, so why not post a chapter?  
> At least I won't be thinking about the guy I kinda have a crush on and will see (probably) for the last time in my life today evening. 
> 
> Also, feels. BotFA feels, Durin family feels and I'm-leaving-on-satruday feels.
> 
> *this is a gif of a cute animal representing how deaded the author is*
> 
> Also, I just almost posted the previous chapter again instead of the new one. Yay. *headdesk*


	14. Corridors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _You don’t really give a shit about this anymore, do you?_

At breakfast Frerin thinks about Khazad-Dum. 

_How much blood are you willing to spill for the place you’re supposed to be calling home?_

He could ask the same think about the Mountain.

The Mountain twenty minutes by bus from his table.

Torn to pieces by heavy machines and dynamite. 

Pieces of history relocated and fake.

_Is it still a home when you’ve lived most of your life somewhere else? If when you come back everything you remember is cold and empty and different?_

Frerin feels like running away. From everything.

Back to the time when he was able to pretend he was just an ordinary man after a weird accident.

He could still try. But he can’t lie to himself anymore.

_What is the price you’re willing to pay to find a home in a world where it’s gone?_

When there’s nothing left but dust and stories.

(The bones of the mountain bare and exposed in the photographs. Words about _revitalisation works_ that don’t mean a thing to him.)

_"We are looking for any living relatives."_

No wonder they haven’t found any when they have been dead for centuries.

Frerin wishes he could forget everything he’s read about the Battle of Five Armies. Everything he’s found out about Thrain.

Everything.

Everything hurts.

He gets his laptop and looks for anything he can find about gold mining in Dale. It can’t hurt worse than how he already feels.

They use the elvish name of the mountain and he’s grateful for that. 

There are guided tours in some of the abandoned mines.

The throne room was found thirty years ago and moved out of the way of a new shaft. It's presumed to be a from the short period when a king of Dale lived in a palace carved in the mountainside to support his claimed descent from the old families from a legend.

(Well, that explains a lot, doesn’t it.)

One of the pages leads to a list of artefacts they found in the mines. Ancient mining gear, basic equipment. Pieces of statues. Nothing really valuable. Nothing really important. Nothing that would suggest more than a small mining community.

_Of course_ there wouldn’t be anything valuable still inside. Tho- Dain’s son _led_ them away. It’s not like they had to leave anything behind.

It’s not like they had to leave behind anything else but stone.

But the human miners didn’t care about stone.

They didn’t care about halls.

They probably thought they were just some ancient mining shafts.

Dynamite burns everything, just like dragonfire.

And just like with the dragon, returning to stone won’t save you from flames.

Except that … Frerin skims through the page again, then gets up, books the longest tour through the mines and looks up the page of a local history museum.

He’s on a bus ten minutes later, heart beating fast with fear and hope.

They looked for gold.

They found the mines.

They found some forgotten tools.

They found the throne room.

They found some lost memories.

But in everything Frerin has read so far they only looked for a mining community belonging to Dale.

Maybe a palace, a fortress or an emergency shelter.

Not for a city dozens floors deep.

Not for a home of hundreds of people.

Not for the last home of many of them.

And so...

…so far … 

…they haven’t found any bodies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, the Battle of Five Feels.
> 
> *crying about acorns forever*
> 
> There was a scene that made me gasp aloud, because I wrote a variation of it after the poking with wrmauney in the comments of Chapter 11. I might actually post the whole thing soonish, because it feels like every chapter of this thing I write makes me write another one.
> 
> Oh, Frerin. *hugs*


	15. Hallways

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Run!

The air smells of dust and iron and Frerin remembers.

He wishes he could erase that day from his memories and never have to replay it again.

The guide's world wash over him and he even tries to listen, but…

_His legs hurt. He can't breathe. Dís gave up on crying but she still sobs from time to time._

_He prays to all he gods he can think of that his family is safe._

_And for the first time in the last couple of hours, he dares to look back._

_The whole Mountain is on fire._

  
Someone asks if he's alright. He nods and manages not to start crying.

They put on the safety helmets and enter the mine.

It feels safe...

… and foreign.

Frerin tries to guess where exactly they are but the closest he can get is _on the wrong side of the Mountain._

He doesn't really care.

They reach a descending tunnel and enter a cable car to get lower.

Frerin finds himself touching the stone before he even realises it.

_I know these walls._

He sits into the cart and thinks. Then stops.

Then he just tries to breathe.

The stone does smell familiar, in a way he can't place.

“How old are these tunnels?” he asks once they stopped and got out of the carts.

“Short answer: Old. Long answer: No one really knows. It may as well be a couple of centuries for the oldest ones.”

“So there is a chance that one of the tunnels is the secret way used by Thorin and the Company?” a girl asks from the back of the group.

She looks … excited. Way too excited for someone at a mine tour.

“Well, you never know, do you?” the guide replies. “Even though _that_ is just a story.” Sometimes you can actually hear an eyeroll.

_I wish I could believe that. No, wait. I don't._

The girl doesn't look deterred by the guide's scepticism. In fact, she basically bounces with joy. Frerin wonders if that's what he would look like if the world hurt a little less.

“What did you say about the secret way? I don't really remember the movies.”

She glows.

“Well, it was in the second one, when they had the map and the key and Bilbo found the way to the secret door and then solved the riddle. And then there was the tunnel down to the treasure room...”

“And you think it's this one.” Frerin's voice shakes just a little. She probably won't notice.

“Why couldn't it be? I mean, if it really existed it _would_ look something like this, wouldn't it?”

  
He thinks for a moment.

  
“Yeah, it might. I think this is as close as we can get to that anyways. But why would it lead to the treasury?”

“Because Thror had it build as an emergency exit from the room he spent the most time in? But that's mostly a headcanon. Though the riddle on the map _was_ signed by T &T, so you never know.”

“And the riddle was...”

The guide gives them a hard look so Frerin continues in a whisper.

“...about what exactly?”

“They had to find the secret door,” she whispers back, “on the first new moon at the beginning of winter and open it when the last light falls on the keyhole.”

Durin's day moon magic. Frerin doesn't start laughing. Just barely.

“And the riddle on the map happened to be written in moon runes, didn't it?” He asks before he can think better of it.

“See, you _do_ remember something from the movies!” She lowers her voice again.

“Yeah, it starts coming back. Thank you. ”

They continue the tour in silence, Frerin's heart beating so hard he can almost feel it hitting the inside of his chest.

  
_I know these walls. These halls._

  
Udad's secret hallway. He showed them the entrance once, on one of his better days. When his family meant more than gold. When he wanted his grandchildren know they are safe.

Before.... _before_.

T. and T. Thror and Thrain. The king who can't be called mad and the prince doing his job. Not letting him die with the rest of the mountain.

Frerin wonders what he would have done if Thorin hadn't sent him away with Dís.

What he would he do if he saw his father fall to the gold sickness.

If he saw …  
  
“Thorin.” It's barely a whisper. Frerin leans on a wall and struggles to breathe normally.

“Are you alright?” the girl asks, concerned.

“Yes, I...” he lies, “I was just thinking... I lost a home when I was a child and I...” he swallows.

“I was wondering how it must have been for them to get it back and then almost lose it again.”

“You mean the battle?”

  
“Yeah.”

  
He lets go off the wall. They walked down another tunnel and now they are in a huge cave supposedly formed by a collapse inside the mountain. The empty dark space is strangely comforting.

“Well, you know, most of the Company did get to live happily ever after. And Thorin came to his senses and apologised in the end. And Bilbo forgave him and apologised too. And Fili and Kili died protecting a person they loved, so it's not that bad, is it? They all were heroes in the end.”

Frerin looks away and for once he's glad he's mastered the skill of crying quietly.

“I guess they were,” he says after a moment or two.

“It's alright. I cried in the cinema too. But it's different here, isn't it. You can almost feel them here.”

The guide gives them another look. Frerin doesn't care the least.

And then, after coming down another level of old tunnels and new flight of stairs, he wishes he hasn't come at all.

Because even after all these years.

  
The air smells of dragon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, yeah, a new chapter.   
> (written before I saw the movie, btw. )
> 
> Aaaand. Meow. Thank you all for reading and kudosing and stuff *hugs*.
> 
> Funny how the character that is the most like me was one of the hardest to write, especially in the next chapter, which was an uphill battle from beginning to end, because smelling the dragon, like seriously Frerin? Whyyyyyyyyyyyyy?
> 
> So yeah, I'm blaming the characters. I've fallen that low.   
> *currently trying to think of a way how to avoid writing "Frerin runs away to a park, cries for an hour" and get to the thing he decides to do afterwards which could bring us finally, _finally_ to the last chapter, which happens the day after tommorow, in universe time*
> 
> *hugs everyone*


	16. Too Deep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Oh, misty eye of the mountain below, keep carefull watch of my brothers' souls. And should the sky be filled with fire and smoke, keep watching over Durin's sons.”_

_So, this is what a car crash feels like._

Frerin tries to … gods, anything,

Breathe. Breathing is good.

Blink? Is that what you're supposed to do when you are alright?

Right, too many things at once. Back to breathing.

It's not here anymore. For centuries. It's dead.

It's gone.

There is a touch of stone under the stench of the dragon and Frerin concentrates on that. Naming the rocks according to their smell has never been his strong suit, but at least it's distracting enough to help him focus.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Quartz. Granite. Humans don't have a name for that. Gold, probably too little to be worth looking for.

The dragon.

It's gone.

Well, so is … Frerin looks around … so is everything else.

There should be lanterns and carvings and stories written in the stone, prayers and good wishes, random scribbles and gossips.

There's nothing.

He wouldn't even recognise the room, if he hadn't spent so much time here, planning how to get Udad out.

He wants to ask so many things, but he doesn't dare to speak.

The others start moving and Frerin follows, barely registering the directions.

Oh gods, they are going down. 

He stops at the top of yet another staircase and stares down at the wires along the walls and the dancing shadows of the rest of the company. 

Why did he just call them a company? 

Breathe. Just breathe.

"Are you sure you're alright?" The girl from ... _gods, it's been how long ago? A minute? Two?_ ... touches his arms as he makes no sign of walking down the stairs.

Frerin shakes his head.

And then, because there's nothing else to lose, he does the unthinkable and takes her hand.

"Better now." They walk down the stairs together. He doesn't let go. She doesn't say a word.

#####

Frerin manages to calm down, eventually, when they go back to new shafts and releases the girl's hand with a quiet thank you.

She smiles a little and moves to the other side of the group.

Frerin doesn't blame her.

He doesn't ... well, trying to breathe normally still takes the most of his focus. 

The rest is occupied by walking straight and not leaning on a wall every twenty steps or so.

He doesn't remember when he last registered the guide's words. 

Luckily, didn't come here to learn about the mines, he came here to...

...oh Mahal.

Oh gods. 

  
Their group goes back to the carts and they finally, _finally_ start going back up again.

Frerin can't wait to be out again. He never wants to leave again.

The girl ends up near to him again as they walk back to the shed with safety equipment. Frerin looks up at her, trying to guess what she's thinking.

"I'm sorry for what happened down there. I really do appreciate your concern."

He wonders what would his family think about him bowing down to Men like this. No, he doesn't. They haven't really lived with them like he did. They wouldn't understand. Well, Thorin might, he has always ...well. He has always at least tried to understand what's going on in Frerin's head. And even if he didn't he would...

...fuck, not again.

Never happened. Not real.

(For now.)

The girl seems ... well, mostly confused.

"I must have been really hard on you ... to lose your home like that..."

Frerin nods.

_Just breathe and everything will be fine._

My family died in a car crash, he wants to say. Everyone I'd known until a couple years ago is dead. My life is filled with strangers telling me how to hide among them. I'm not a Man. I was born in this mountain, centuries ago. I saw the dragon set Dale on fire. I saw it tear apart the gates and crush the guards. I heard the stone crack in heat, the talons scratch the ground.

I used to tease Thorin by calling him my king. He would call me his princess. I would tell him he's got the wrong sibling. Dís would ask if there was anything wrong with being a princess, smacking our arms. We would laugh and know that no matter what, we knew we would always have one another. 

We would never be alone.

My world is full of strangers and I'm trying not to let them really see me.

_They all were heroes in the end..._

Small mercies. 

As if Durin's sons could go any other way. As if they ever could give up fighting.

Small victories. 

He does his best to smile.

“You know, I'm not that good at history, but from what my father taught me about mining tunnels, some of the ones we used today can be even six or seven centuries old. Would that be enough for your story to have happened?”

Her eyes widen.

“Yes, I think it would!”

She giggles. 

  
They hand back the helmets and walk out of the yard passing another tour group.

“Is that why you were so sad inside? Because it reminded you your family?”

“Yeah, that's why.” _More than you can possibly imagine._ “And sorry again for the...”

There is a bus coming to the stop at the main entrance and Frerin quickly decides against going anywhere.

“That's alright. I lost my dad too, when I was eleven. I know it can come back at the weirdest times.”

She looks at the stopping bus and hesitates for a moment.

“I have to go. Great meeting you.”

She catches Frerin off guard by drawing him in a quick hug.

“Take care.”

And then she's jogging away.

Frerin's muscles take a while to relax after the unexpected touch.

“Yeah, you too,” he mutters after the leaving bus.

You too.

They were all heroes in the end.

  
Frerin walks around until he finds a patch of grass near an intersection where he manages more to sit than collapse on the ground.

He waits until the world stops spinning and he runs out of tears.

He takes a bus to the botanical garden and spends the rest of the day pretending the dragon never happened and that he would come home for dinner in the evening.

Home to the Mountain not to a tent at whatever village they are staying now.

At whatever battlefield they are camping now.

Mahal, Dain is barely over thirty, why do they let him even go into the battle? At least Dís was sensible enough to stay back.

She's got a husband and sons somehow. They are _over seventy_ now. They can almost start their own families soon.

Dizzie is not even an adult yet. 

How old is eleven in human years anyways?

Frerin groans.

Thinking to much will end in a headache. Enough.

Enough.

_Enough._

The sun sets behind the Mountain and the world is scarier than ever before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I keep changing the number of chapters. But things keep happening and Frerin needs to see them all. Also 20 _should_ be the final number. I hope.
> 
> In other news, this chapter was absolutely the hardest to write. But yay, we made it. Also somwhen in the past three weeks this work got more hits than my story about afterlife!kitten!Thorin, which was like my dream goal when this crazy thing looked like it might have more than 5k words. So wow. Thanks.
> 
> Also, all the chapter summaries from now until the end are somehow song lyrics. Should I make a list, or no one cares/everyone can google?
> 
> Also also, *hugs everyone*


	17. Daydreaming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“This is my home, with my father, mother, brother, oh so noble, oh so strong_   
> _Now I am home, here among my trappings and belongings I belong_   
> _and if anybody doubts it, they couldn't be more wrong..._
> 
> _Surely this is all I ever wanted,_  
>  _all I ever wanted…_ ”

The headache, of course, comes back in the morning.

Frerin groans and takes another spoon of milk soaked cereals. Some people in the kitchen already start preparing lunch. It hurts.

He downs the rest of the bowl and doesn't throw up. Small victories. Small mercies.

The first days after the accident were just slightly worse than this. Just slightly.

The door outside is stuck as always.

(Since when did anything here became describable by always?)

The wind is cold, but at least the throbbing in his temple is more bearable on the small terrace behind the hostel.

And he can't see the Mountain from there. Small victories. Small mercies.

When did his life become such a mess?

He doesn't bother crying again.

If smoking didn't make him sick, he would be on like twentieth cigarette today.

  
_So it's all real. Now what?_

  
What are you going to do now?

They're real. They're _dead_.

Amad. Adad. Thorin and Dizzie and Dwalin. Balin, in the depths of Khazad Dum. Little Dain. Everybody else.

They are all dead.  
For _centuries_.

  
Frerin slides down a wall and buries his face in his hands. 

How could he have forgotten?

How could he have believed it wasn't real?

  
_Because hiding and nodding at the right places was the easiest thing to do._

_Because he never could have ... should have survived his injuries._

_Because ... the illusions hurt less._

  
Dwarrows were built to endure.

Small victories. Small mercies.

It's like coming back from the hospital all over again.

No one knows, no one cares. Emptiness curls in the corners, waiting to attack. So many things wrapped in insecurity, two steps from falling apart.

Frerin takes a deep breath. 

He already managed to get through this once, he can do it again.

He just needs some time. And lots of warm to hot liquids.

He walks inside, takes his painkiller (one of the million brands they've tried that actually works) and spends a good part of the next hour taking a really hot shower.

  
#####

  
Painkillers, showers, naps and food ready-to-eat-in-less-than-five-minutes are definitely great inventions, Frerin decides at the second bowl of soup.

Well, back then they knew what naps were, they just never really had the time to take them.

Right, food first, thinking later.

  
He spends a most of the afternoon on the couch in the common room, staring at a wall, dosing of from time to time, browsing the internet looking for random bits of info about the local history.

It's the last day here. He _should **do**_ something.

Mahal, it’s like waiting for a battle. You can't really do anything, just try to kill time until you try to kill something that wants to kill you. 

At least back then he had a little sister to sneak small smiles to and a big brother to tease. 

Oh, fuck, not again. 

It's not like it matters now. They are all... 

… in stone. 

Somewhere in the middle of the bloody Mountain. 

Well, given the amount of traditions Thror insisted on keeping it would be somewhere around... 

Frerin rubs his face. 

It's not like he can just... 

...right, no crying in the common room.  


He takes a deep breath and goes to the terrace again, this time putting on a jacket first. 

It's not like he can just march into the Mountain demanding answers.  
It's not like he can just sneak in through the mines and look for them himself.  
It’s not like he can walk the thirty levels from the treasury to the Last Homes and say goodbye to what is left from his family. 

The tears feel hot on his cheeks, but the trails they leave are ice cold. 

Like the dragon’s fire burning the world they knew.  
  
 _Dís sobbing on his shoulder, ashes in her hair._

Like the winter nights when even with all three of them huddled under Adad’s coat the chill and the distant howling kept them from falling asleep.  
  
 _The look he shared with Thorin as they moved Dizzie in the middle every night. To protect her from the wolves, they told her, pointing at their little swords. To protect her from the big scary world outside, they never had to say aloud to each other._

Frerin looks the way he knows the Mountain is hidden behind nearby buildings. 

It’s not like he can not to try. 

He opens his laptop again and this time, he knows what he's searching for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, basically half of all my editing ever is removing the unnecessary _really_ from like every other sentence. Also getting uncomfortable because of stuff being in doubles/halves.
> 
> A couple of chapters around this one was written while listening to the Prince of Egypt soundtrack, which although it's nonexistent in Frerin's world, fits the story at a couple of meta levels. 
> 
> I also read several chapters (posted and not posted yet) and kinda freaked out at how to an end everything is.  
>  ~~ _and if you by any chance want to see the bagginshield/poetry thing that will never make it to AO3 meow to[here](http://hidden-but.tumblr.com/post/111560511229/andquitefrankly-whispers-okay-but-an-au-where). Occational live updates happen there too._~~


	18. Plans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“But if you close your eyes does it almost feel like nothing changed at all?”_

_Fire._  
  
Frerin wakes up with a start, gasping for air.  
  
There is something burning, but no smell of … bad things. People are talking quietly in the background.  
  
So he got startled by cooking again. Brilliant. At least Thorin in not around to tease him this time. As if he doesn’t have nightmares on his own.  
  
_The things we never talk about._  
  
At least Dizzie doesn’t remember much.  
  
Small victories. Small mercies.  
  
Frerin stops at that. The thought shouldn’t feel so familiar. He doesn’t bother opening his eyes again, though. Nightmares always leave him confused and tired and hurting. Someone will fetch him to work soon anyways. No reason to get up before that.  
  
_Thor, come back, I miss you. I need your help. Please?_  
  
Pathetic as always. Old enough to fight or not, still hiding behind his big brother.  
  
Dwalin is so right to laugh at him.  
  
But he wasn’t…  
  
They sing about winds and pine trees and shadows.  
  
They don’t sing about what it felt to be inside the Mountain.  
  
Dwalin was on the third level. He was on thirty fifth.  
  
The moment he saw Amad he knew something went terribly, terribly wrong.  
  
And now, when they finally have a chance of a new home... the big brother is scouting the fields around Azanulbizar and the little one is getting nightmares from cooking.  
  
At least Dizzie is staying out of this.

Frerin turns after a sound behind his head and finally opens his eyes properly.  
  
There’s a … _dwarfling-no-proper-beard-yet_ looking upside down at him.  
  
“Hello? Are you alright?”  
  
Frerin blinks at them.  
  
“We didn’t want to wake you up, but it looked like you had a really bad dream. And … you look a bit pale now. Is everything alright?”  
  
_No. It’s not._  
  
Breathe.  
  
_“You’re confused because of a head injury. You had a car accident.”_  
  
Right. Of course.  
  
“Yeah. I … had a car accident. I hurt my head. It comes back sometimes.”  
  
The light behind the dwarfling’s head hurts his eyes. Frerin sits up.  
  
“I’m… I’ll be fine.”  
  
There’s something wrong. Something terribly wrong.  
  
_You had an accident. Things are expected to feel wrong after that._  
  
The dwarfling turns as another person starts talking to them. It takes Frerin a moment to realise they are speaking in a foreign language.  
  
“My friend says that if you want to you can have a dinner with us. We made pasta and have some extra.”  
  
“It’s… that would be very kind of you.” Never say no to people offering you food. Whatever a pasta is.  
  
The _wait-too-tall-for-a-dwarfling_ smiles at him and goes to one of the tables in the dining area. There are two other people chatting in a foreign language. Frerin stands up slowly and joins them. Then he realises he needs a plate and … probably fork. Blue cupboard, top shelf.

Something’s wrong.

 

He pauses at the fridge and takes his apples, putting one in front of each his hosts.  
  
“As a dessert.” His smile feels fake.  
  
Why is he staying in a house of Men?  
  
They all take some of the … _pasta_ with what looks like onion, red vegetable, green vegetable and eggs and eat in silence.

  
  


For a while.

 

“So, what are you doing here in Dale?”  
  
Frerin manages not to stab himself with the fork. Foreigners. Accents. Just sounded like what it sounded. Didn’t really mean how it sounded.  
  
“I ... travel. Around. I’ve got a bus tour pass, so I just go wherever it looks nice and … what about you?” He manages to say. Something is wrong. Everything is … disconnected, somehow.  
  
“I study at the uni here. I’m here for six months to write a paper about the restoration works around the mines. And my friends came to visit. How long are you staying?”  
  
“I’m leaving tomorrow. But it has been a nice week.”  
  
“Any tips what to see?” asks the taller of the other two.  
  
“Well, there’s a museum, pretty cool, zoological garden with like a million brown horned animals, some old buildings in the centre look really nice, you can go on guided tour into one of the former mines and … ”  
  
_… there’s a dragon, still lingering in the shadows…_  
  
“Oh, man, you’ve been there? I want to go since I came here, but I’ve never really had the time. The school is in a stupid part of town, far from everywhere. How was it?”  
  
_Emotional. Stupid. Embarrassing. The worst idea ever._  
  
“Pretty cool, actually. You go by a cart and walk around, it’s dark and creepy and … cool. I really liked it.”  
  
Frerin concentrates on the movements of his fork and tries to breathe around the ice in his chest.  
  
There’s something missing.  
  
Food now. Thinking later.  
  
The shorter of the other two says something in their language. They laugh. Frerin smiles as if he could understand. They continue talking and he keeps staring at his plate.

He’s the first one to finish. There’s a moment of awkward silence. Umad would be giving him a very hard glare right now. A prince doesn’t let a conversation end up in a silence, unless to make a point.  
  
He tears his gaze away from the plate and gives them one of his best yes-it’s-me-no-I-can’t-I’ll-get-you-Thorin-or-Adad-or-Amad smiles.  
  
“I’m sorry, I have to go, I’m leaving early in the morning and have to pack and everything.” They all nod. Good.  
  
“Thanks again for the dinner, it was delicious. And enjoy your stay here.”  
  
The picks up his dishes and retreats to the kitchen before they finish saying goodbye all at once.

_This can’t be Dale. Dale of fire. Dale from the nightmares._

This _is_ Dale. But not _the Dale_ , the _other Dale_.  
  
Right. Headache again. Been there, done that. This morning actually. Frerin washes the dishes, puts them away to dry, picks up his laptop and leaves for his room.  
  
He nearly makes it to the first floor. Then he runs to the bathroom and crashes on the floor in one of the shower stalls.

_Why do they call it the first floor? It’s minus one._

He spends the next five minutes shaking, memories flooding his mind without any order.  
  
He digs his fingers into the cold tales on the floor, looking for something, anything to make it stop.  
  
Just. Stop.

The memories do stop coming eventually, eternities later.  
  
Frerin counts the tiles on the floor, cracks on the ceiling, drops of water on the wall.

  


_Shit that was close._

He laughs tonelessly at the thought, calming down slowly.

_It is not real._

He’s not sure if he means here and now or there and then or a bit of both.

_I am safe now._

There are no monsters, no dragons, no endless hospital corridors leading from nowhere to nowhere else, no cramped rooms full of noise and plastic.

There is just a mountain in his back and a story that doesn’t make any sense.

_How did I get here? And why?_

“No one knows the Maker’s work but the Maker”, Udad used to say.  
  
“Leave the work to the gods and nothing will ever get done”, Umad would laugh every time after that.  
  
“We make our own luck”, Adad, in his full-on Prince Under the Mountain state, muttered once, as he walked away from a meeting with … whoever it was that time.

_"We’ve already lost everything we had, what worse could be possibly down there?"_

Frerin takes a deep breath, straightening his back.  
  
It doesn’t really matter why, or how, or who for that matter.  
  
This is not really that different from Azanulbizar.  
  
A long abandoned mountain, scary things inside, possibility of slightly familiar dead dwarrows, and the closest thing to a home they have right now.

Frerin hides his stuff under a pile of clothes, takes a quick shower and dries himself with a t-shirt.  
  
He checks the timetables and sets the alarm clock on his phone to four am. 

He doesn’t hope to sleep much, but still, he lays down in the darkness and tries to calm his thoughts.

He doesn’t need to know much about speleoalpinism to browse the pages of its club.  
  
He doesn’t need to understand the human terminology to recognise a picture from the Curtain Wall as _Siginiklalkshathu_.  
  
He doesn’t need to know how he got from a battlefield to a speedway to try and find his way home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm... not really sure what this chapter is even doing there. It feels weird. But maybe it's supposed to. But if I don't post this one nowish, I won't post anything even. *sigh*
> 
> In other news, real life has been fun and I, wait a minute,  
> \- taking baths in denial, check  
> \- this is not real/it will be fine, check  
> \- flashbacks and wrong-feelings, check  
> \- showering to calm down/avoid life, check  
> oh Mahal, I'm turning to Frerin.
> 
> *hides behind a pillow*


	19. Beginnings and Blessings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"This is your home, my son…_   
>  _here the River brought you and it’s here the River meant to be your home._   
>  _Now you know the truth, love, so live and be content_   
>  _when the Gods send you a blessing, you don’t ask why it was sent."_

Frerin doesn’t expect to eat much, but when he is moving the rest of his food to the Free for All shelf a forgotten habit from the Orc Wars comes back from nowhere.

You are going to a battle. Eat. 

And so he eats.  
  
The first morning buses are nearly empty, so is the train station where he drops his luggage in a locker.

**T-9:01.**   


An hour on the bus, more or less. 

Frerin shivers and blames the cold. He’s always done that anyways. The heirs of Durin don’t admit they are afraid.  
  
#####  
  
He arrives at the cave entrance a little after sunrise. There are bars in the entrance, but the lock is missing and Frerin opens the door with a kick. 

A short tunnel leads to a small opening with a campfire base and the floor is littered with wrappings, empty cans and broken bottles.  
You are going to a battle.

Frerin digs the flashlight out of his bag while munching on a sandwich. He pauses for a moment, then he fills a pocket with granola bars and leaves the rest of his stuff there.

The walls smell like The Mountain and home and his blood is thrumming with battle rush.

He holds the flashlight tight and pretends it’s an axe. 

He checks the time and starts walking down the cave.

**T-6:45**  


He gets lost twice before he finds his way to the Curtain Hall. His hands are scratched from climbing and Frerin’s pretty sure his knee is bleeding, but he doesn’t care.

He looks up the rock curtain that probably gave this cave its name and grins.

There were only a few hiding places the grown-ups hadn’t disturbed them at, and this one… well, you don’t forget the only time you saw you big brother hiding from the world to cry alone, do you?

  
_“I’m sorry Frer, I… I didn’t want to scare you, I just… don’t know how to stop it. How to stop… him. Udad… he’s not mad. You know that. ”_  
  
_“I know. We will think of something. It will be fine.”_  
  


Frerin finds the entrance to the small pass, puts the flashlight in his mouth and starts climbing.

He forgot to count in the change in the width of his shoulders, he realises as he nearly gets stuck in the crack. So that’s why they left them alone. Frerin thanks all the gods that he didn’t have much weapon training in the last couple years. 

Their hiding place near the crosspaths still… looks the same. Smells the same. There probably weren’t that many children after the mountain was reclaimed. Or, there weren’t that many children in the royal quarters, because that entrance was the easiest to find. 

Frerin considers going there for a moment, but then, that part of the city was probably either rebuilt or … too close to the new mining shafts. 

_Dust and ashes. Roar of industrial machines. Fire and dust._

His hands are shaking.

_I don’t want to see great halls or empty rooms. I just want to see my brother. I just want to meet my family._

He turns to one of the cracks and climbs down through it.

**T-5:25**  


It feels like crawling back in time. The crack leads to plumbing maintenance shafts and Frerin can nearly walk uprights again. The water channels are filled with rubble, but there are still signs at the walls, notes from one worker to another and “Nali son of Pori smells like an elf”, scribbled at the intersection where he has to turn left. It feels like nothing changed at all.

He has to push on the door leading out to the street until it gives out and falls on the ground with a loud echoing noise. 

Then, silence.

Frerin can hear his breath, his heart beating loudly in the darkness.  
He swallows and picks up his flashlight from the ground.  
The cone of its light is shaking with his hands.

Before him, in pitch black dark emptiness and eerie quiet, lies what is left from the long abandoned Kingdom under the Mountain.

He’s home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New chapter? New chapter! 
> 
> I'm sooo procrastination all of this. Also, Hobbitcooooon was yay. Also also, I only need to get Frerin through a door and then edit the end. Oh wow.

**Author's Note:**

> This miiiiight be a series, if I find someone to poke me with a stick until I write it. I probably won't. Any volunteers?


End file.
